Author
Topic: sugar vs. pure honey (Read 4896 times)

Here's the thing. I'm to lazy to explain the whole thing but one thing has been bothering me since....i can remember.On almost every honey label you can read: "pure honey crystalyzes after time, it's a normal processSome honeys crystalyze even faster, such as beech tree honey (mana honeys). A week ago i harvested and the honey wouldn't go out, it crystalyzed in cells. I asked a beekeeper and he said that it's not honey and that the crystals are sugar, as if i fed the bees (which i didn't do).

so this led me to thinking:Does artificial (made with a lot of feeding) honey crystalyze faster?

Does the sugar really crystalyze?

So the label is some kind of an excuse? Or are people just unaware?

To cut the chase( :P) Do both, natural honey and sugar crystalyze?

(hehe, now i've said it all, told you the whole story, and BTW all beekeepers here are whyning about crystalyzed honey in cells, especially this year)

No, crystalization is not water evaporating out.Crystalization occurs because honey is a product of evaporation though.

Honey is a super-saturated solution with sugar put into solution at higher levels than water can usually hold. I'm assuming more sugar is able to stay in solution in honey due to the heat of the hive. As in the kitchen or laboratory, you can force more solute (sugar in this case) into a super-saturated solution with the addition of heat to the solvent (water in this case).

These types of solutions are generally pretty unstable and it is common for the solvent to precipitate/fall out of solution easily. Essentially that is what happens when honey crysalizes. A seed (could be anything--a speck of dust, wax flake, toast crumb etc) begins the process by creating a rough surface for the crystals to form around. After that happens, the process can proceed rapidly.

Logged

After 18 months of reading and preparation, my girls finally arrived on April 11th (2006)!

As stated all honey will crystalize over time. Even a single spec of pollen can induce crystalization. To reverse the process apply heat. Put a jar of sugared honey in a sauce pan with water bath (like warming a baby bottle) and the honey will reconstitute itself. I've know people to reheat the same jar of honey several times with no ill affects.

I've also found that honey can be reconstituted in a mircowave oven--just be sure to use a glass, porclean or mircowave safe plastic container.

Logged

Life is a school. What have you learned? :brian: The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!

thank you all for your answers. so it is far more likely that i have crystalized "forest" honey than sugar.

about warming up the honey. i know all that, but im surprised you didn't point out the MOST IMPORTANT thing about warming the honey!! temperature must NEVER exceed 40 degrees celzius!!! if it does, all the good things that bees "put" into honey are destroyed. So people who put honey into hot tea are making terrible mistakes. Also about using the microwave, i think it's a terrible mistake, we all know what devastating effects on different types of food. So you might wanna warn your friend.

The most satisfactory method for controlling honey spoilage is pasteurization

this is why you have to heat it. but i haven't heard about spoiled honey, i even heard that they uncovered some tomb in egypt or somewhere and it contained EDIBLE honey. you just have to store it in cool and dry place, like most of foodstuffs.

Yes, you can use honey in a cup of tea, but if tea is too hot, you will ruin the healthy ingredients, as if you sweetened it with sugar. this is a well knonw fact around here, i'm a bit surprised/shocked.

you can use honey in a cup of tea, but if tea is too hot, you will ruin the healthy ingredients

(alt+q)If you are aphonic, because you have a cold, boiling a lemon with two spoonfuls of honey is a good traditional medicine, drinking it you can sing having a shower the next day. If you eat a lemon with honey without boiling, is different, you will not sing so fast.I think that hot honey just before consume canÂ´t lose properties as you think.

it could be, i can't argue with you on this one. BUT :) , traditional medicine can sometimes be very...unlikeable (i know it ain't a word). 1.) the belive of many that lemon has a lot of vitamin C, wrong, orange if better so is paprika2.) by boiling ANYthing you destroy most of the good stuff such as vitamin C3.) traditional sometimes isn't so traditional (how long has the lemon been in practical use)

the main thing about home healthcare is in my opinion BELIEVING, so as long as you believe it helps, it really does. don't stop using it. but when it comes to molecular stage, i'm almost certain that by exceeding 40 celzius you destroy a lot.

I hope not. My age is 59,5 . Bees make me healtier when I have interesting hobby.

but you just said I am not healthier at alljep, bees do take good care of their keepers.

this is all too much writting for a simple advise:If you eat honey for medical purposes, eat it unprocessed and not overheated. you can either take my advice as if it was said by Dr. TheMostFamousDoctorInTheWorld or you can throw it in the garbage.[/i]

Well Mici, I am not a Shaman, I am not looking for the Fountain of Youth in the lemon, like Ponce de LeÃ³n in Florida, and I am not saying you that it is good to drink the "Balsam of Fierabras" or all-healing balm. I live in my century. :lol: Spanish donÂ´t live in a collective spell. We have doctors.But you have to agree that essence of medicinal plants is distiled using high temperatures.Boiling lemon with honey you obtein something different, a "tertius genus" -chemical- that is not cold lemon with honey on the rocks -physical-. Lemon is not only vitamin C.Lemon was introduced in Spain together with orange and sugar cane by the Arabs in medieval times from Asia. Arabs invented the alambique to distil the plants. Saladine had the best doctors and schools where learnt Jews and Arabs while the Christians had the better "butchers".DonÂ´t be sorry, Better to drink one day "boiled lemon with honey" than whole life cold tea.